Innovative capabilities of the Kindle 2

Since the Scoble's, Engadget's and Gizmodo's of the digital world do a far better job than I reviewing new CE products and gizmos, I will spare you any in-depth, visual analysis of the Kindle 2. 

Instead, I would like to highlight what I appreciate most about this product and the key capabilities that make this a winning device in my digital arsenal.

Capabilities, not features and engineering specs, are why I get excited about and buy digital devices. Not surprisingly, the most wildly successful products are the ones that truly deliver powerful new capabilities and experiences. 

For instance, the iPhone brought us robust, desktop-like Internet browsing on a mobile device. The Nintendo Wii delivered a video game experience that the entire family could enjoy. Tivo gave us the ability to never miss our favorite TV shows. Facebook reintroduced us to our most precious past friends and remote family members. 

In all of these cases, innovative new capabilities were presented to consumers that created exponential affiliated possibilities for more- a capabilities platform- so to speak.

When I was with Opera Software in Oslo, right after the turn of the new Millennium, one of the features I passionately pushed for in the desktop browser was the capability to effectively capture, log and 'take with you' those critical nuggets of information that are read and viewed in the process of browsing the Internet. I was frustrated that I was spending an obscene amount of time on the web and, other than a swath of bookmarks, quickly forgot the vast majority of what I discovered and was meaningful to me. 

Sadly, we were only able to deliver a feature called 'Opera Notes'. While this feature brought us closer to the vision of never leaving behind the treasures of the web, it missed the opportunity to create an entirely new capability for web browser users.

So this brings me back to the Kindle 2. Amazon has done a tremendous job vastly improving a first generation product and, in my opinion, delivering amazing new capabilities around electronic reading (e-reading). 

After using the product now for one week, I firmly believe that Amazon has developed a product that will revolutionize e-reading with the following three key new capabilities:

• One-handed reading. The Kindle 2 is thin, light and well designed to be held with a few fingers on one hand, just like a conventional book. This more closely mimics how we read paper books and makes it feel less like a device and more like something in print. Simply put, the superior industrial design of this device is a game changer.

• Create notes and highlights.  This is the single biggest reason I took the plunge for the Kindle. Like the promise of 'Opera Notes', this capability allows users to either contextually add personal commentary to the text or highlight and save a section of the text. This is a very powerful way to quickly capture or accentuate something profound, interesting or valuable without derailing the reading experience. Best of all, once the book, magazine or newspaper piece is finished, the reader is left with the most important nuggets of information that can be reused, digitally in print, or verbally. To me, it's a capability to extract greater practical value from what you read. Huge!

• Text-to-Speech. Wow, I was blown away by just how cool this capability improves my ability to follow the story and 'hear' each word. I found myself both reading, thinking, and hearing each word and that helped me maximize the detail that the author has labored to present. It was also handy when reading in an area with ambient noise as the headphones and speech effectively blocked out that 'noise' and allowed me to concentrate on my e-book. Even though text-to-speech may not be enabled with all books and the technology itself still needs improvement, it's a capability that makes the Kindle 2 truly shine as an e-reader.

There are many other wonderful reasons to use the Kindle 2 and countless ways that it will continue to evolve as an e-reader. I am officially on the bandwagon and look forward to discovering more capabilities that make this such an effective and fulfilling way to enjoy books, magazines, newspapers and blogs of all kinds. 

Congratulations to the talented people at Amazon's Lab 126 division for bringing us an innovative and capable product that will change the way we discover, buy, read, and enjoy books forever. They deserve all the credit in the world for making a good product great and setting themselves up for a very bright future.